Obeying the formula

X is like Y meets Z*.

Its an old trope beloved of lazy writers, but sometimes that really is the most effective way to describe a new thing to someone unfamiliar with it (assuming that your audience is familiar with both Y and Z).

Better Off Ted is like Mad Men meets Eureka.

Ted is a suave, highly competent creative manager with a permanent 5 o’clock shadow (like Don Draper in Mad Men), who manages a team of research scientists at a super-high-tech company with a finger in ever industry (like Eureka’s Global Dynamics). Hilarity ensues, more thanks to the great writing than the cast, but solid and earnest hilarity nonetheless.

Better Off Ted is still airing its first season right now, a mere seven episodes in. I only caught it because it was mentioned on Murmer’s “this week in TV”, which seems to be the result of the iFanboy staff** getting at once sick of talking about comics and a chronic case of the 2.0s. There’s a podcast too, just one episode so far. Maybe you should listen to it.

*X is also sometimes like Y on Z, where Z is some kind of narcotic. Something explored past its logical conclusion by Lee and Herring back in the day when they spiked Norman Wisdom’s drink with acid to see if it really would make him act like Lee Evans. (shitty video link)

** All of them but Ron (that’s “the fat one” to you, Matt).

O2 wins UK exclusive on Palm Pre, says report


It’s all about the handset exclusives, son.

OR

Another great smartphone confined to o2’s so-so 3G network.

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Ian Hickson on Codecs for the HTML 5 video


This saddens me a great deal. How is HTML5’s to eliminate flash if we can’t all agree on a codec?

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DesignNotes by Michael Surtees » Blog Archive » Mapping my iPhone space

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The Royal Tenenbaums


Rent this film, it’s really weird. In a good way. Mostly.

(for 99p, how wrong can you go?)

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UK Folding Plug concept could flatten that bulky British adapter


This might just be the sexiest thing I’ve seen in months

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